


Pavane for a Tedious Anniversary

by Remeinhu



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Beheaded Cousins, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Execution anniversary, F/F, Friendship, Gen, K Howard is a deadpan snarker, brief discussion of sex, past sexual abuse (briefly mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24199051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remeinhu/pseuds/Remeinhu
Summary: Tomorrow was the anniversary of Katherine Howard's execution, and as she settled into her new life, she was finding the fact that it occurred every damn year (as anniversaries are wont to do) to be exceedingly wearying. The thing no one had warned her about coping with trauma over the long term was just how tedious it was.Anne Boleyn, however, had no intention of letting her cousin suffer alone.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn & Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn/Catherine Parr (mentioned), Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard (mentioned)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 81





	Pavane for a Tedious Anniversary

In the previous years since her highly improbable reincarnation, Katherine Howard had spent February 12th in a state of utter panic. This year, however, she awoke feeling merely exhausted. She didn’t need to look at the calendar to know why. Tomorrow was the anniversary of her execution, and as she settled into her new life, she was finding the fact that it occurred every damn year (as anniversaries are wont to do) to be exceedingly wearying.

Well, at least the queens had scheduled the show to go dark for two days around the anniversaries of each of their deaths, so she wouldn’t have to worry about performing, or being left alone. But it was still going to be deeply unpleasant.

She groaned. _Maybe this time around I could just sleep through it._

Right, like that would work. It wasn't as if sleeping stopped the flashbacks. _Feh. Maybe I could get drunk. Who are you trying to fool with that one, Howard? You can’t hold your liquor. Puking your guts out sounds like just the thing to take execution flashbacks from good to great!_

Kitty flopped back onto her pillow, resigned to a miserable 48 hours but willing the onset to hold off just a bit longer. The thing no one had warned her about coping with trauma over the long term was just how tedious it was. 

Although if she thought about it, there weren’t too many other people out there who had been sexually abused, become queen, been interrogated, imprisoned, beheaded, and then reincarnated into a new body after four hundred and seventy-six years of limbo. She supposed she couldn’t really blame anyone for not giving her a roadmap.

She ground her teeth in frustration. There were so many things she’d rather be doing, especially given the windfall of downtime, than managing the memories of her own death. _I could practice the keyboard. I could look into finally getting set up to get a dog. I could get Jane to teach me how to fucking cook._

_I could get a dental procedure without anaesthetic, and it would still be more pleasant._

She pulled the covers up over her head.

_Fuck this shit. Why couldn’t whatever power that brought me back have been kind enough to wipe those memories? Or at least, I don’t know, dull them a bit? What possible purpose is served by…_

Her rumination was abruptly cut off when Anne barged into her room, belting out “HAPPY DEATH DAY TO YOU!”

Kitty winced. “Nan, it’s tomorrow, and you’re flat. Besides, I didn’t undergo torture, so why do you feel the need to add that now?”

Anne plopped down beside her. “My dearest Kitten, I am willing to sing as absurdly out of tune as I possibly can, if it only gets you out of your head for a while.” She coughed. “Erm. No pun intended.”

“Very funny. And I don’t feel up to going out.”

“Don’t tell me you’d prefer to stay in bed all by yourself. It isn’t good for you.”

“Nan, what I would _prefer_ is not re-living my beheading on a yearly basis, but that doesn’t exactly seem to be in my conscious control. As you should know damn well.”

Anne looked at her for a long moment. “Kitty, are you finding that it gets more…ho-hum…each year? Not better, exactly, but less acutely terrifying?”

Kitty nodded. “Yes. The first time, I was a wreck. I really thought I was going to die all over again. The next time, it was still terrifying, but at least I knew I’d get through it. This year, it’s just like, ‘well, damn. This is going to _suck_.’”

Anne laughed. “Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.” She reached out and gently stroked her cousin’s forehead. “Well, my darling. I have no intention of leaving you alone until you’re through this round. I mean, except to use the bathroom. I will allow you to pee by yourself.”

“How kind.”

“I do try. Now. Cathy has gone to the library to get you a large stack of escapist fantasy novels. If I recall correctly, you enjoy the ones with the psychic white horses and the rip-roaring revenge fantasies?” At Kitty’s affirmative, she continued, “Good. Catalina and Jane should be returning with massive quantities of cake and pastry within the hour. Anna has gone off to get you some surprise she absolutely refused to tell me about, and which I therefore shall assume is an absurdly expensive vibrator.” She snorted at Kitty’s blush. “What? It’s 2020. You’re allowed to enjoy sex now.”

“Yes, Lord knows you and Cathy aren’t shy about it.”

“Listen, I lost my head on the trumped-up accusation of multiple adultery, and I didn’t even get to have any fun. I fully intend to make up for lost time. Which reminds me, after you’re through your death day I’ve got to tell you about this really neat…”

Kitty held up her hand. “Not _now_ , Nan. Talking about sex does not precisely sound appealing to me just this minute, for what I hope are bleeding obvious reasons.”

Anne grimaced. “Sorry, Kitten. Got carried away.”

“It’s okay. I know glib obscenity is your own coping mechanism.”

“You bet your sweet ass it is.”

“I do have a sweet ass, thank you, and it’s all for Anna. Or it will be later, when I feel up to it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of encroaching, my dear beheaded cousin. Now, where was I?”

“Before you started on a tangent about vibrators?”

“Ah, yes. I was telling you that your fellow queens have gone out to procure the means for pampering you outrageously over the next 36 hours. When they get back, we are all going to drag chairs and blankets and pillows in here for an extended slumber party to beat the best of them. In the meantime, however, I’d guess we have an hour or so. How may your humble comrade in decapitation serve you?”

Kitty was—as Anna had started saying lately (she'd been picking up some Yiddishisms, for some reason)—verklempt. “Nan, this is perfect. You’re lovely—’thank you’ seems insufficient…” 

Anne smirked. “I should hope that by the third round of all our death-days, we’d all have figured out how to do this properly.”

“Practice does seem to make perfect.”

“We try. And I shall expect the same from you in a few months.”

“For all you know we’ve been planning already. Although I’d guess that you’d prefer some half-cocked high-adrenaline adventure that will send Jane into fits.”

“You don’t have to take my word for it that my brain is constantly seeking dopamine. The psychiatrist said so. It’s _science_.”

Kitty remembered all too well how Anne wouldn’t stop rambling on about neurotransmitters for weeks after her ADHD diagnosis. “And you can be sure we will follow doctor’s orders.”

Anne took Kitty’s hand into her own. “I would expect no less. Today, however, is all about you. So what would you like from me until the others arrive?”

Kitty smiled. “Just…be with me for a little while? Quietly?” She hesitated. “And…I’d also like a cuddle. If that’s acceptable to you?”

“Of course, Kitten.” Anne burrowed under the covers and wrapped her arms around Kitty’s waist. “This okay?”  
Kitty curled up. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Mmm.” After a moment, Anne said softly, “Kitten, I know all of this won’t make today and tomorrow stop sucking. I think I know that better than anyone. I just hope we can make the parts that suck less actually fun for you—balance things out a bit?”

 _Well, of all the ridiculous times to start crying…_ Kitty swallowed and tried to tell Anne that she had it exactly right, although what came out was somewhere between a squeak and a sniffle.

Anne, however, seemed to understand just fine. “It’s okay, Kitten,” she whispered, rubbing Kitty’s upper back firmly. “We’ve all got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> A pavane is a slow processional dance that was popular in early modern Europe; I thought it an apt metaphor for the "procession" of years since the queens' reincarnation, as they continue to "learn the steps" of their new lives and cope with the memories of their old ones.
> 
> I also wanted to write Kitty a bit differently. In the show itself, she's more than a bit of a deadpan snarker, and I hadn't seen that aspect of her in much fanfic. It seems to me that a wry sense of humor is a more than reasonable response both to years of trauma and to the absurdity of reincarnation after all that--certainly no less so than Chaotic! Anne would be.
> 
> The escapist fantasies "with the psychic white horses and the rip-roaring revenge fantasies" are, of course, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar novels.
> 
> Finally, applying contemporary diagnoses to historical figures is always a fool's game. However, historical accounts of Anne's quick temper and her skill at risky games of court intrigue, when combined with her "genius ditz" persona in the show do seem to line up with some of the diagnostic criteria for combined-type ADHD. (As an ADHDer myself, I'll also admit to recognizing some of these traits intimately).


End file.
